This Spiral Garden Museum concept was entered in a competition for Taipei's new art museum. The design, by French firm Influx Studio, didn't make it into the final competition, but it's still astonishingly beautiful.

It looks like a corkscrew that's drilling down into Taipei. The sloping walkways lead up and around, ending up with an amazing outdoor terrace. The interior of the museum would have included two floors of contemporary art museum, three floors of the children's museum, plus a plaza and mall. The whole thing is built around the idea of openness, and the garden motif is seriously cool. Although, as Fast Co. Design points out, the top-heavy design might have been a problem in earthquake-prone Taipei.